Books in Primary Schools

Julie Elliott Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Julie Elliott (in the Chair)]

I will call Gill Furniss to move the motion and then call the Minister to respond. As is the convention in 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the availability of books in primary schools.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Ms Elliott. I am delighted to have this time to talk about books, after raising this issue many times since entering Parliament and serving as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for libraries, information and knowledge.

If it were not for books I would not be standing here now. As a child, I started going to libraries and I have never stopped. In fact, I spent so much time in libraries that I ended up working in not just one but several over the years, from public libraries to academic libraries. I eventually earned my degree in information and library studies as a mature student. Books changed my life. I know that they have the potential to change the lives of millions of children, too.

As a former librarian, I have had the privilege of welcoming countless children through the doors of my local library, watching as they were whisked away to far-flung places, captivated by the magic of words. Children are whisked away to the land of Shakespeare, Dickens, the Brontës and many others. This is a country whose identity is steeped in story, which is why I find it so shocking that there is no statutory requirement for schools to have any library facilities. It is no wonder that one in six adults in the country have very low levels of literacy, rising to one in three in some of the poorest communities. I fear that those statistics could be even bleaker in future.

Research conducted by the National Literacy Trust found that 56% of eight to 18-year-olds do not enjoy reading in their free time—the lowest level since surveys began in 2005. More than ever, books are fighting phones and video game consoles for relevance at home. Although those have their place, it is vital that we do everything in our power to help establish a love of reading during children’s formative years.

Funded Childcare

Julie Elliott Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Johnston]

I reserve the right to do that, but we hope that if we ring them up first and ask them to publish—with the threat of doing that if they do not—they will do so.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

The current system of childcare support is not working: IT problems are causing parents to be locked out of the system; codes are not working; there are no timescales to sort problems; there is no response to complaints; and people are waiting weeks for moneys to be paid to providers. If the current system is not working, how does the Minister expect to reassure parents that the new system, which will rely on the same codes and systems, is going to work?

[David Johnston]

I simply do not accept what the hon. Lady says—[Interruption.] If she wants to send me details, I will be happy to take them up with any local authority that is not doing what it is asked to do. On the two particular issues with the roll-out, we have moved quickly and provided solutions for them.

Safety of School Buildings

Julie Elliott Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

The debate we are having today is important. It goes to the very heart of what it means to govern and the very purpose of good government, which is to educate and protect our young people properly. The issues of the safety of school buildings and the safety of our children are of paramount importance. I am shocked that even has to be said, but unfortunately what has emerged in the past week has made it apparent that it does. Despite the Secretary of State’s exasperation on this issue, I will not be congratulating her on her handling of it.

The Secretary of State is a member of a party and a Government that have seen school budgets as expendable and a place to save money, whether that is the abolition of Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme, which I will say more on later, or the Prime Minister deciding in his previous role as Chancellor of the Exchequer that the safety of our people is not a priority for this Government, a view that he has continued into his premiership. I am sure that the Government will be tired of hearing the words of Jonathan Slater, the former permanent secretary to the Department for Education from 2016 to 2020, but he knows what he is talking about. He said that the investigations by civil servants led to them recommending that 300 to 400 schools needed repairs each year. The Department requested Treasury funding to cover 200, yet the decision made in 2021 was to halve the number of schools repaired from 100 to 50. Who was the Chancellor at that time making those decisions? It was the Prime Minister, who is now presiding over this Conservative Government’s education crisis.

This is not just numbers on a page. Across the country, more than 100 schools are affected. Eleven so far have been reported in the north-east, four of which are closed. They are vital to the future of our children, but those schools are now unsafe. It is shameful. Tellingly, in his response to the former permanent secretary, the Prime Minister said in an interview with the BBC:

“If you look at what we have been doing over the previous decade, that’s completely in line with what we have always done”.

Yes—cutting funding to repair and build schools. I could not agree with the Prime Minister more. It is exactly what Conservative Governments have done over the past decade: ignoring the priorities of the people of Sunderland, the north-east and the country, ignoring the life chances of our young people and ignoring this issue, which has been on the Government’s desk for a few years. We go from crisis to crisis, and it is working people and families who suffer. That is why we need change in this country.

Building Schools for the Future, the programme that the last Labour Government had for replacing all or part of schools that needed to be rebuilt, was abolished by the Conservative-led coalition in 2010. When Labour left power, the economy was growing. It was the policy of austerity by the coalition Government that led us to recession. The Conservatives then were the same as the Conservatives now: a threat to our economy, with a lack of care for our schools.

In Sunderland, in 2010, under BSF wave 2, the council was informed of an indicative budget of £137 million to cover 14 school rebuilds or ICT infrastructure replacements. When the plug was pulled on BSF, that funding was withdrawn. The issues in the schools remained. Today, two of those schools have been identified on the list of the 500 schools in the worst condition in the country. Thirteen years later, action has not been taken. Refurbishment of the others has had to be funded by alternative capital due to the absence of Government support. Six of them are still in need, with no progress since 2010. That is shocking.

The use of RAAC in school buildings, and probably other public buildings as well, is not the responsibility of any one Government, but sorting the problems that has caused is. The Government’s complete lack of prioritising school buildings being fit for purpose or funding education properly has led to the crisis that many of our schools find themselves in today. This is a self-made schools crisis that the Government have brought on themselves. It has forced schools to close and it is the result of years of neglect by Conservatives. The Secretary of State might like to play the victim here, but it is our children who are in danger in this crisis. Someone needs to take responsibility for putting our young people in danger, and so far the Prime Minister is refusing to accept it. The Education Secretary has said that the safety of school buildings is not the responsibility—

Safety of School Buildings

Julie Elliott Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

I am pleased to be able to contribute to this debate on the critical issue of the safety of school buildings. Today I want to talk about Grange Park Primary School in my constituency, which provides an excellent education for the pupils that attend it, in spite of the appalling condition of the building. It is truly a credit to the pupils, parents, teachers and the school community that they make it such a great place to learn in such circumstances.

The school was built in 1931. My own father attended the school in the ’30s, in a building that was at that time, almost 100 years ago, fit for purpose. Now, sadly, it is anything but. Grange Park Primary School was recently omitted from the school rebuilding programme, despite a number of capital failures in the building affecting walls, roofs, windows and mechanical and electrical services. I could provide the Minister with the images now. It has cracks in the internal and external brickwork over 1 cm wide—in a number of cases, wide enough to fit a pen in. It has huge cracks going up to the roof and over the roof to the chimney. There is damage to important structural elements above the windows, and it has widespread damp due to roof failures, broken windows and building movement, yet it does not qualify for funds.

I ask the Minister, why? After the CDC survey, his own DFE officials contacted the local authority to warn of the alarming condition the building was in. Would he be comfortable sending children to learn in those conditions? Does he deem this building a safe place to learn in? I would like to ask the Minister why this school building in my constituency, which so obviously needs a huge amount of investment, care and attention at the minimum, and in all likelihood a rebuild, has been omitted from the school rebuilding programme. The parents, teachers and pupils of Grange Park Primary School deserve answers, so I hope the Minister can provide them today.

When we talk about the safety of school buildings, we are talking about the very minimum that is required for a child to learn, and we are talking about the simple things that we as a country should expect from our education system and its infrastructure and from our Government. How are our young people supposed to learn and fulfil their potential when their school buildings are not fit for purpose or their school environment is crumbling around them? It is not conducive to encouraging hope and opportunity, and it does not show belief from this Government in our young people.

It is clear that the Conservatives’ mismanagement of the education system has become a hallmark of this Conservative Government over their 13 years in power, and that a lack of care and attention to our education sector is having a real effect on our children’s future. That is reflected in the alarming numbers involved: between 2009 and 2022, the Department’s capital spending declined by over a third in cash terms and by a half in real terms. These are not small numbers or negligible figures, but huge reductions in capital spending on the vital infrastructure that our schools and, indirectly, our young people need. Hiding these problems will only make them worse.

As such, I want to use this opportunity to ask the Minister how many schools in Sunderland and the wider north-east pose a risk to life. Can he really confirm today that every school building in Sunderland, including Grange Park Primary, and in the wider north-east is safe for our young people to enter and learn in? These are simple but important questions that the Government need to answer, and the longer they put this off and hide the scale of the problem, the greater an issue it will become. That is unfortunately what you get after 13 years of Conservative Government: buildings crumbling because the Conservatives will not invest in them, teachers striking because the Conservatives do not value them, and facts hidden because the Conservatives do not like them. First, we need to truly understand the scale of the problems caused by 13 years of Conservative government.

I will finish with one more question: if the evidence at Grange Park Primary is not enough to warrant funding from the school rebuilding programme, what state does a school have to be in to get this Government to invest and rebuild it? It is shameful.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee on Education.

Remote Education and Free School Meals

Julie Elliott Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab) [V]]

The concept of remote learning leans heavily into the topic of digital exclusion—the exclusion of those who do not have the devices or data needed to access education. The Government may talk about addressing the issue, but yet again they are simply not doing enough, and what they are doing is at the latest possible moment.

The digital divide and the impact it is having on people’s lives was known about before the pandemic. It meant that people struggled to access services and information, and to engage with the digital world around them. When the pandemic arrived, it forced everyone indoors and into a digital world. It shone a light on the digital inequalities that already existed and, as time went on, exacerbated them. It was no longer a choice to work or access services from home, or for young people to access their education from home; it became a necessity. This situation accelerated the existing inequalities tenfold.

Remote learning became the only way for the vast majority of our children and young people to access their education. A clear divide opened up between those who had internet connection, data and devices, and those who did not. If the Government had invested in the procurement and distribution of devices on the first day of the pandemic, they would have been a Government acting too late, but 10 months later they have still not taken adequate action. We must remember that every day lost in education is a day of potential lost. There are still thousands of children up and down the country who are unable to access their education.

The Department for Education might say that it is going to provide 1 million devices, but that is not good enough. The actual digital divide, according to Ofcom, means 1.8 million people not having adequate connectivity. I am proud that organisations such as Laptops for Kids North East and the Good Things Foundation are reaching out to those in need in our communities and supporting people, giving them the data and devices they need, but they are having to do that because the Government have failed to do so.

This debate is rightly combined with the issue of free school meals. I applaud my neighbouring MP, my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), for campaigning on this issue for years; I agree with everything she said. It was heart-wrenching to see the images posted online last week of food parcels. Our children deserve so, so much more. The Government may try to pass the blame on to others, but it was their policy that got us into this mess. It is the Government’s responsibility to put this right and put it right fast by guaranteeing a substantial, healthy free school meal to all children who need one.